Not sure if memes are allowed here. Apologies if they aren’t.
Bird man and the whale come to mind
This happens a lot with old movies.
A film comes out that’s revolutionary, so every film after it copies it. Future eyes lack that context, so they just see something that looks like everything else they’ve seen.
Citizen Kane is a good example. The writing, editing, and cinematography were revolutionary at the time. But, through a modern lens, it appears very ordinary because it’s very similar to every copycat that followed it.
it’s the former, not the latter
To expand on that;
Y’all are seeing Survivors Bias / Rose Tinted Glasses in action
The bad movies of the less recent past are forgotten or lost to time, even the over hyped ones.
But we’re living in the present, so the bad and over hyped of the recent past is still fresh in our minds, and that paints out perception of “they made better movies in the past”
There was the same or more bad shite, just everyone forgets about it
I couldn’t stand Ready Player One. Yeah I said it.
Well yeah, it’s shit, but that’s beside the point I made.
It’s nostalgiabait made by a Redditor for Redditors, and so of cause that gave it undeserved hype, when it’s well and truly shite.
We compare the slop of the present to the masterpieces of the past because we don’t remember the slop of the past.
Survivorship bias but with movies
Fair point but the slop of the present is pretty damn shitty
Any you’ll forget about it in about two or three years.
While our brains rot
Isn’t that what they said Movies would do to you in the 30s?
Have you saw how stupid people are lately?
What, you think that’s a new thing? You think people weren’t dumb fucks in the 1930s? The 1830s? The 1730s? Human life is temporary, mass idiocy is eternal.
they were even dumber back then, i know it’s hard to believe but it’s true
It’s not just you, my friend.
Among many movies, I felt that way about Killers of the Flower Moon and it literally took me to fall into a random convo with the girl who cleans my office at work before I found a like-minded individual.
That movie and The Irishman were piss, but everybody insists they are masterpieces because Scorsese made them. Scorsese is just like James Cameron and Fancis Ford Coppola where they have reached an age and are so accomplished that they have lost touch with the world and are surrounded by yes men who don’t dare tell them no. And so they make very long and very shitty movies that are more for themselves than they are for anybody else. At least, Cameron is able to make his avatar slop entertaining while you’re watching it even if it is forgettable af.
Killers of the Flower Moon was particularly infuriating for me because it was so clearly just Scorsese making yet another movie about white men who are shitty, while pushing the native Americans off to the wayside as supporting casts in the movie that was supposed to be about them.
I read the book too because people kept telling me my opinion was wrong and that this was a good movie that is very faithful to the book. Well, clearly every person who claimed this, did not read the book because the book very much stays with the native Americans and their perspective and the case is treated the way it normally would when you have a conspiracy/murder mystery. You get invested in this people, you fear for them and the revelations are horrible.
Scorsese was like: how about we make the movie entirely about the bad guys and we have no reveals ever because we are told exactly what and how things happen from the start and treat the native Americans like they are ignorant, brain dead idiots who fall for the easiest trick in the book? Yeah, let’s do that. Let’s make the natives stupid and naive and have the conmen be super obviously evil and gross too, to the point that we don’t understand how any of these native Americans could have ever called them friend or family. Let’s race swap the only nice white man in the movie too. He was native American in real life, but for whatever reason they made him white in the movie. I still don’t know why they did that. I thought this was supposed to be authentic to real life. We do not race swap historical figures. I thought we all agreed that it was dumb when they made Anne Boleyn black. It’s also dumb when we make a native American man white in a movie about how white men committed systematic murders on native Americans to get their money.
Oh, let’s also make the movie 4 hours long and throw a temper tantrum when cinemas around the world implement intermissions so that movie goers have a chance to pee and get refreshments. No no, this slop is ART and Scorsese-manchild wants you to sit through all 4 hours of his slop because it’s his movie.
Piss movie. I hated it so much and nobody agreed with me until I spoke to my cleaning lady who completely understood where I was coming from.
The book is so much better. Such a well crafted blueprint for a suspenseful movie or TV show about a horrific chapter in native American history and how oil money attracts all the predators and vultures in the world to eat you and your family until nothing is left. Not even bone fragments.
But no. Scorsese cannot make movies from any other perspective than that of white men with corrupt souls so, sorry, native Americans. You gotta be supporting casts in your own friggin story.
Amazing. Piss movie. It riles me up everytime I think about it and it riles me up even more how much undeserved praise it recieved. Piss. Movie.
Scorsese thinks if you fire editors and shit out 3 hours of film it’s an epic.
Thought it was good. I missed much of the hype before and after and went in blind.
I think your anger is directed more at your expectations of it (a.k.a the ad/hype machine) than the film itself
I didn’t follow the hype. All I knew about the movie before going into it was that Scorsese had rewritten the script because he realized he had made a movie about white men and forgotten the native Americans. To which I now ask: what the fuck was the script like before?
I’m glad that you liked it, but please don’t make assumptions about me disliking it because I supposedly fell for a hype train. That is not what happened.
From your long drawn out text that goes into Scorcese’s filmography, I assumed you were well informed of his upcoming works and watching something because of a script re-write tends to lend itself a sense of expectation.
I think you might be plugged into the hype machine more than you might allow yourself to believe
Ah, you’re one of those people.
Yeah, I tend to heckle the soapboxers. It’s a hobby.
Especially those who can’t have a civil discussion without downvoting anyone who disagrees with them out of a deep insecurity of being challenged on anything, no matter how small.
It’s my opinion on Citizen Kane, and I’ll die on that hill. It’s just… fine. Nothing extra.
I can understand that I could have been something novel and groundbreaking back then, but calling it the best movie ever made in our time is just beyond me.
I’m bitter and old, AND movies have gotten worse. All those things are true.
I have better now luck with TV shows. Currently, Pluribus is good.
I’m on here now, because I couldn’t find anything to watch tonight. I’m hoping One Battle After Another is good, we’ll see. Often, I turn off a new movie less than 15 minutes in.
I watched Point Break last night for the second time. Great film. Very unaware of how gay it is though, and I wonder what 90s mainstream audiences thought of it
we just thought it was an awesome, underrated bro movie. bro as in brothers and male relationships.
A lot of male asses being shown, and guys who hold eye gazes longer than can be deemed non-romantic.
Also “young, dumb, and full of cum” isn’t something you typically say to a new hot shot. You say they’re “full of spunk”.
Edit: Oh shit, it’s all been gay all along. The whole damn english language!
full of spunk is a bit outdated of a phrase, but it still checks out.
it’s art, you’re welcome to interpret it how you like! i’m just saying, i was there, that’s how we interpreted it. since you asked.
Oh absolutely, it’s a great film! Just watching with a modern lens kind of makes you miss that innocence in filmwriting where macho hotshots “testing” each other comes across now more like closeted bromances than what was perhaps intended.
I kind of feel like a modern remake would lose that bromance edge, and would turn it more into a standard action film which would ruin the magic of the original.
there is a remake, and i think that’s what happened XD
I weep, why remake a perfect film 🥲
“damn kids get out my lawn”
Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
Mostly I just wondered why the movie was made in the first place. Sure, examining the tragedy of creating an intelligent being that cannot mature and cannot let go of emotional attachments by design is interesting… but the meandering, pointless story had like three places it could have ended and just … didn’t, finally topping it off with a ‘bittersweet’ ending that seemingly had no purpose besides to give some catharsis to the audience despite being so out of left field that it had no relation to the rest of the story. It could have been an art book showing off the scenery instead of bothering to throw an aimlessly wandering robot child into it.
It was a movie that Kubrick and Spielberg both thought the other guy would be able to make it work. So they passed it back and forth. The scenes you think Kubrick came up with, were actually things Spielberg came up with and vice versa. “Here’s a scene you’d be the perfect director to make, you should direct this movie!” So it’s a mix between what Spielberg thought Kubrick should do and what Kubrick thought Spielberg should do.
Neither of them could make it work. But Kubrick died and Spielberg felt he had to finish it. It’s an interesting movie to see what each director wanted the other director to do, but it’s not a great movie to just sit and enjoy as a movie.
I still like the movie although it is definitely a movie I have to be in a mood for. However, after I watch the ending I realize I want the future people and technology to be a movie.
It wpuld be more interesting to reimagine the film as future archeologists discovering this story but maybe not getting it exactly right based only on artifacts. More like short stories being told through the film. It would have had the same message, characters and locations, but would have been more focused as the stories they showed would have had to be ultra relevant to the plot. Not sure if any of this makes sense.
This is a great idea, actually.
It’s one of those “the right story but told the wrong way” movies. We need a fan edit!
How was the ending out of left field? Feel like it was culminating to that point. But I agree with you the ending WASN’T necessary. Just a nice bow.
Instead of a tragic - but sensible - ending, magical aliens showed up after Earth was kaput, and gave him what he wanted. There is nothing to tie this ending to the rest of the plot besides the main character, no agency involved in its happening, no nothing. It’s unsatisfying. It’s a deus ex machina, and not the good kind.
THAT I agree with but it makes sense in that the boy ironically became human through his use of emotion and experience. I would’ve preferred the bitter sweet ending. Sometimes being human IS living a life of tragedy. But they couldn’t leave that little boy at the bottom of the ocean, I get that also. Idk 🤷♂️ seems thematic just a little to “disney” fir me.
Although I agree that they couldn’t just end it at the bottom of the ocean, if it were written better it could have had an ending that actually tied into the rest of the story, rather than what it wound up with. The whole thing just felt like a lot of missed opportunities.
Watched it when it was released, completely forgot about it.
Saw it mentioned on a podcast, watched it again about two weeks ago. I can barely remember it now. The “I see dead people” kid, Jude Law, and Teddy Ruxpin look for a statue? Yeah, that sounds right.
When it was mentioned on the podcast, I mistook it for I, Robot. That’s how much I’d forgotten about the movie.
KPop Demon Hunters came out this year.
It sounds like a cheesy kids’ movie. It even kinda looks like one. Or, at least, before it got super popular when everybody realised “hey, this movie is actually really good” and started playing the soundtrack nonstop between viewings. And not just little kids, middle-aged people like it, too. I’ve been watching and loving movies for about 40 years, and I remember seeing Mortal Kombat (1995) in theaters, and being just floored by that opening. Cheesy yes, but techno music with sound bytes from the game (the Super NES/Genesis game!) while flames roasted the dragon logo? Movie intros usually aren’t that cool. Movies aren’t meant to be a thrill ride. They play the long con. KPop Demon Hunters was the first one in a long time (I guess 30 years) that gave me the same feeling. I felt it when the first song hit. Then the scenes with the light flashing in the plane windows. I knew I was in for one hell of a ride. I’ve seen it four or five times now, and it doesn’t get old. It may not be good like a Scorcese or Tarantino movie, but it’s fun, and that’s good. It’s more fun than all the recent-ish Star Wars movies. I remember when those were fun. Someone lost the memo.
Movies don’t have to be good if they’re fun. A lot of people liked Minecraft, Five Nights at Freddy’s, The Emoji Movie… I haven’t seen any of them. But KPop Demon Hunters looked pretty stupid, too, until I gave it a chance. If a movie makes you forget about the bad shit in the world for a couple hours, it’s done its job. Let’s stop asking much more than that from movies. Sure, I have a niche I absolutely love (smart/weird flicks like I Origins, Predestination, Donnie Darko… even if they’re pseudo-intellectual, if I can dig into it, I love that shit) but a fun dumb movie is cool in my books.
If a movie makes you forget about the bad shit in the world for a couple hours, it’s done its job. Let’s stop asking much more than that from movies.
Never underestimate entertainment value. All art is also always part entertainment. Never forget that.
Well shit. I might just have to watch Kpop hunters. I kept seeing it but I didn’t care enough to look into it.
I know the exact feeling with watching Mortal Kombat because I watched it in the theaters and thought it was great.
“Your soul is mine.”. Cutt to techno music 🎵🎶🎵🎵🎶
Kpop Demon Hunters initially looks like a girlie movie that was shoehorned into being an action flick.
It’s a drama, interspersed with enough comedy and action to make you forget that it’s a drama. The story isn’t anything special, but it has well-done emotional beats backed by a soundtrack that elevates it. It is absolutely worth watching. (And the animation is fantastic.)
Don’t go into it expecting a cinematic masterpiece; it’s made for kids. It is also, however, a kid’s movie that is intended to entertain the adults who take their kids to see it.
I watched it with my wife. I can see how it became popular, especially the music, but it’s not for me. I didn’t like the movie due to the music.
The animation, however… I’m honestly excited for the sequel JUST for the animation!
Choose your might
See, I find, that “critically acclaimed” and “popular” usually don’t go well together. However, something with just critical acclaim from people I like (and sometimes a Criterion release) tends to be some of the most amazing things I’ve ever witnessed.
But to the meme’s point, Tarkovsky’s Solaris was boring, and hard to understand for me, so much so I didn’t ever finish it. I’ll have to try again maybe from a different perspective.
Spoiler for the OP:
Tap for spoiler
The planet is an alien organism that grants wishes.
All the subconscious thoughts of the people on the space station Solaris come true, their fears, and anxieties as well.
You are supposed to be bored. His films are contemplative. They are also very Russian.
Stalker is even better/worse.
Read the book. Seriously, Lem’s depictions of all things alien are orders of magnitude better than any movie - even modern CGI - can be. (I watched the Tarkovsky movie after reading the book and wasn’t impressed either)
I actually enjoyed Solaris a ton for its pacing. It’s controversial understandably, but it felt like the story was moving at a real world pace, rather than the modern approach of one moment of action to the next.
It’s a slow burn, for sure and I wouldn’t say it’s for everyone.
I had a really hard time getting through Solaris, but the ending with the rain is burned into my soul. Sometimes the slog is important in order to feel the meaning.
Looking at you, Mulholland Drive
I liked it 😬
For the plot, right?
There was a plot?
Noooooough how could youuuuuu? XD It’s okay, it’s not for everyone. Personally it is one of my all time favorite movies, but I 1000% understand how and why some people think it’s some weird bs.
To each his own, but I found it to be pretentious crap. It comes off as though the entire script was “HERE IS THE MESSAGE DID YOU GET THE MESSAGE HA HA AREN’T WE SO SMART”
Lol sorry I thought I was replying to a comment about another movie 😅🫣 I’ve been moving house so I’m a bit sleep deprived.
But yeah, that is totally fair. It’s hard to completely avoid pretentiousness when you make weird experimental movies.
Mulholland Drive is also a funny case because if I remember correctly, it was originally supposed to be a TV series with ties to Twin Peaks but they ended up making rewrites to have it be the story it is now. Parts of the movie is a bit out of the blue and nonsensical because they are leftover scenes from when it was a different story with way more time to explore the plot.
You may also be a lot more clever than me, because the first several times I saw it I didn’t really understand what it was about at all, just that it made me feel a certain way and that I liked that I felt entirely stuck in a fever dream.
Wasn’t until I rewatched it recently as an adult that I understood the story much better and what the point of it all was and yeah, I can see how that can be an annoying experience if you catch it all in the first watch and as a result become annoyed with it.
Btw, what’s a movie you’d recommend? I’m always hunting for movies I haven’t seen or heard of and word of mouth tends to land me better results than the pre-approved lists on official website lol.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend, my friend. Sorry if you saw my initial message and was confused af. I’ll go sleep now, lol.
I was a young adult when Mulholland came out, not sure if I “got” it now that I’m thinking about it.
As for recommendations, I’ve been on a big horror movie kick for a couple of months and was completely caught off guard with how good both Talk To Me and Bring Her Back were. I highly recommend both unless Aussie accents give you misophonia, because that’s literally the only reason I can think of that anyone wouldn’t enjoy them.
For me, I think the biggest “wow” moment I had when I watched it as an adult was when I understood that this was basically a metoo movie before metoo was even a thing. I have some issues with that movement and how it has been used by some people, but no one can deny that the industry is incredibly oppressive and exploitative of young talent. That’s just the surface level. Further down it’s also just a very thorough and tragic character study of Diane who is a very complex character. I always end up feeling deeply sad when the movie ends. All those hopes and dreams and optimism, entirely crushed by the nature of the industry and by the deep, selfish flaws in Diane’s and Rita’s characters.
But again, I don’t demand everyone to feel what I feel or see what I see xD I could be totally wrong about this film, but I have yet to have a sitting with Mulholland Drive, where these deep emotions of sorrow didn’t well up in me. I don’t know how Lynch did it, because this type of Hollywood-centric movie should by all means repulse me as most movies about Hollywood does. But maybe it’s because it takes such an empathetic and honest look and how the industry chews up and spits out people who have big dreams and big egos, yet aren’t at all prepared for the reality they are going to face when entering an industry that sells dreams and delivers nightmares.
Oh man, I love the racka racka brothers!! I too was super thrilled about Talk To Me despite it making cringe-inducing moments of suspense that made it so hard for me to look at the screen. The foot sucking scene for example made every cell in my body cringe in discomfort and I could barely look at it. My boyfriend joked that I barely saw the film haha. I recently bought Bring Her Back on bluray, actually! We tried watching it one evening but I had to turn it off because I just wasn’t in the right mind space to watch it. I cannot remember the last time a director (in this case two) have made me this scared of watching their movies. It’s actually kinda thrilling and I look forward to the day when I have the mental strength to finish Bring Her Back because I really like the set up, acting and camera work in it so far. I just know that, that creepy kid is gonna to some fucked up shit and that the Racka Racka brothers are a little too skilled at making body horror, so yeah. I need me some balls to get through it haha.
Oh and no I don’t mind Aussie accents at all xD I find them endearing.
If you’re still into horror stuff and cringe inducing body horror is something you like, I will also recommend the 1981 horror movie Possession. There is a particularly fucked up scene in a tunnel that is absolutely iconic in horror and has been homaged in more recent horror movies too, though right now, I don’t remember specific examples. I just know that I have seen some recent films that very obviously and heavily referenced this movie. The lead actress suffered with mental health issues years after this performance. It was really upsetting to her.
I can look through my horror movie lists in case you’re interested in getting a few recommendations yourself! :D if not, then I completely understand as well 🤗
It was a lot gayer than I thought it’d be.
really liked it but literally said “what the fuck” when it ended
This was Everything Everywhere All At Once for me. Normally I’m pretty easy to please but this one fell completely flat
I liked the movie, but people sold it as this incredibly weird and awesome masterpiece. I think my expectations were just way too high.
OH MY GOD, THANK YOU.
It’s not that I don’t like the film, quite the contrary.
I just can’t stand that people compare the shit to The Godfather. My impression of these viewers is they walked out of the theater going “I haven’t cried that hard since Endgame!!”
It’s really, really not that deep. It was fine for what it was, well produced and rather entertaining. But it’s a far cry from Citizen Kane or Memento lol
Yeah it’s a comedy about relationships. Pass the popcorn.
To be fair, part of the premise of that movie is to immerse yourself in absurd ideas in parallel universes… for reasons. So it’s not surprising that it gets confusing.
It’s not confusing at all, it’s one of the most straightforward and easy to follow plots imo. Would definitely satisfy the “second screen” requirements of most at-home streaming audiences lol
Honestly, maybe that’s the real reason it became so popular. Even a child could keep up with it.
See, I didn’t hate it because it was confusing, I hated it because it felt boring and cringy. Once you get over the initial genre hopping whiplash, it’s just more generic action tropes and multiverse nonsense that had already been done to death by the time that movie came out. At the insistence of the people I was watching with, I admittedly didn’t make it past the expository bagel scene, but once I got the pulse that it was a slice-of-life drama and John Wick thrown in a blender with Rick and Morty, I didn’t mind turning it off, and I usually hate not finishing movies.
The gimmick was gimmicky, sure - and they made sure to do it as gimmicky as possible, all part of its charm.
Its staying power was in the unique story of a mother pulling her daughter away from the precipice of spiralling self-destruction by opening her heart and mind to new ideas and breaking the cycle of generations of cultural abuse.
It genuinely has a wonderful message, and I remember it for that, and less for its action/scifi
once I got the pulse that it was a slice-of-life drama and John Wick thrown in a blender with Rick and Morty, I didn’t mind turning it off
See, for me that was the appeal.
I feel like a lot of the audience is so media illiterate they didn’t get that and instead treated it like some cinematic masterpiece with all these deep messages.
The bagel scene was silly nonsense completely on-par with your metaphor, but it was fun too. Anyone who thinks the bagel has all these deep layers beyond just a quippy scifi joke is the embodiment of the “To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty” copypasta lmao
I kind of agree that’s what I never really got about it. It’s not mind bending. It’s a classic example of movie snobs having never considered that sci-fi could be art and getting confused when the movie asks the audience to make the slightest leap in imagination.
The thing I did like about it a lot is that it’s a very rare movie, especially an action flick, in which the main character is a 40+ year old woman who actually gets a character arc. That was cool.
The ending is fairly relevant to the quality of the movie
Alright, I got around to finishing it sooner than I expected.
Fully agree: the second half of the movie does actually go somewhere with all the nonsense. The character development is fantastic, and the sci-fi actually is used as a creative way to explore self worth and interpersonal relationships.
I stand by my frustration with what comes across as gratuitous, dated feeling humor and tropes (Scott Pilgrim, Rick and Morty, “so random! XD” Internet culture), but it definitely has a lot more depth and substance than I was ready to give it credit for.
Noted. I’ll give the rest of it a shot sometime.
For me it’s Gravity (the one with Sandra Bullock crying in space) and the last two Nolan Batman films. I just don’t understand why people like them so much.
Nah man, see… you didn’t watch it right.
First time I saw Gravity I was high as fuck on edibles and watched it on 42" plasma screen.
Shit was like the best 90 minute theme park ride of my life lmao
I watched it on my 120" 3D projector (while also high as fuck) and still hated the film.
Weed and a giant screen couldn’t save that shitshow of a film.Also, the part where
spoiler
George Clooney jumpscares you by inexplicably returning from space and popping open the hatch to the spaceship
blew my goddamn mind ahaha
because it’s porn/fan service.
Gravity was a 2 hour ‘omg going to die in space’ porno.
“Choke me harder, space vacuum! <3”
Are you including the dark knight there? I though that was the best of the three.
See this is what I’m saying. Everyone praises Dark Knight, so I went in all excited to see what the hype was about, only to leave the film thinking “this is it”?
It’s not a bad movie, per se; I think the problem is that the hype had set my expectations sky high, and I don’t think it could ever live up to expectations, no matter how good it was. But honestly just about every scene that didn’t have Heath Ledger in it had me falling asleep on the couch. The cinematography was good (especially the IMAX shots) but I just wasn’t interested in the plot.
2 is the best of the trilogy. 1 was just OK and 3 had its moments but failed to capture the spirit of 1 and 2.
“Death by exile” was pretty funny though.
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I’m here with the nolan movies, but i thought the first one was the weakest of them. And by weak i mean it was pretty ass.
lol Batman Begins is the only one of the three I like
I watched “Hugo” because it was so critically acclaimed. It had all the awards. Critics loved it…
Most boring, pretentious, film-school self-masturbatory slog I’ve ever watched.
The plot was either boring or incoherent. There a boy in a train station? And now there’s a steampunk robot who… draws movies or something? And some old dude in a shitty apartment has a bunch of obscure history films? What tf are we doing? And the robot is magic now?
The only reason it got high marks is so every critic to wax themselves about how bigbrain cultured they are. The totally got all the niche nods/ode/references and it totally justified their bullshit college degrees…
You watched a children’s adventure comedy movie and surprised it’s a but nonsensical? Unless the critics sold it as something it’s not, I think this one is in you 😄
I saw bits when a flatmate watched it and it was not being treated like a movie aimed at children. Looked dull as dishwater.
right? like… it’s a kids movie. it’s not a biopic or art film. the hell is OP going on about?
